Metabolomics: Understanding Metabolism in the 21st Century

Overview

Metabolomics is an emerging field that aims to measure the complement of metabolites (the metabolome) in living organisms. The metabolome represents the downstream effect of an organism’s genome and its interaction with the environment. Metabolomics has a wide application area across the medical and biological sciences. The course provides an introduction to metabolomics, describes the tools and techniques we use to study the metabolome and explains why we want to study it. By the end of the course you will understand how metabolomics can revolutionise our understanding of metabolism.

Course Syllabus

Metabolism and the interaction of the metabolome with the genome, proteome and the environment

The advantages of studying the metabolome

The application of hypothesis generating studies versus the use of traditional hypothesis directed research

The use of targeted and non-targeted studies in metabolomics

An interdisciplinary approach with case-studies from clinical and environmental scientific areas

Important considerations in studying the metabolome

Experimental design and sample preparation

The application of mass spectrometry in metabolomics

An introduction to data processing and analysis

Metabolite identification

Level

The course is primarily aimed at final year undergraduate science students and research scientists who are interested in learning about the application of metabolomics to understand metabolism. However, metabolomics is a new tool to the scientific community and this course will provide a valuable introduction to scientists at any stage in their careers. It is not essential to have any previous knowledge of the subject area but a reasonable knowledge and understanding of science would be beneficial.

Accessing the course

This course is hosted in an online learning environment. Simply sign up on the FutureLearn platform using the "Register Now" links on the top and bottom of this page. As soon as the course run begins you will have access to learning materials, with new sections released each week.